Netflix's The Guilty Is Guilty of Being Boring and Predictable
– October 01, 2021
To say I’d been waiting weeks to see this movie would be accurate. Painfully accurate. Let me paint the picture so you understand the level of delusion I was operating under.
I’m pretty sure the first time I even heard about this movie was three weeks ago — some random article I scrolled past. Then I saw the trailer and immediately thought, “Oh… so this is just that Halle Berry 9-1-1 movie but with Jake Gyllenhaal?” But because Jake rarely disappoints, I kept it on my radar.
Then, like an addict who refuses to accept reality, I kept checking Netflix… over and over… like four separate times — each time convinced this was the day. I was fresh off a Squid Game and Alice in Borderland binge, so yeah, daddy needed a fix.
Finally — finally — the movie drops, and here’s how that went.
The Setup
The movie kicks off like every other movie: with a beginning. Except this one wastes zero time letting you know something is off with our boy Jake.
Gyllenhaal plays Joe, an LAPD officer doing 9-1-1 operator duty. Not his usual gig. We can tell he’s not exactly employee of the month right now, because he’s been benched from the streets for Reasons™.
He takes a few routine calls, then gets that call — the woman pretending she dialed the wrong number. Joe hears another voice in the background and immediately knows something’s up. He improvises a code system and learns she’s been abducted.
If you’ve seen the trailer, congratulations: you’ve basically already watched the whole movie up to this point.
Joe sends highway patrol to check her house. They find her kids alone. The daughter calls 9-1-1. Cue the dramatic walk-through as officers describe the scene.
And right around this point — halfway in — I knew exactly how the rest of the movie was going to go. Which is never a good sign.
The Problem
Jake Gyllenhaal does everything he can. He acts his ass off. He sells the stress, the guilt, the pressure. You can practically see the sweat on his soul.
But even Jake couldn’t save this script from being predictable as hell.
The movie starts slow, finally picks up, and then immediately sabotages itself by becoming obvious. Once you see where it’s heading, you’re just sitting there waiting for the movie to catch up to what your brain figured out ten minutes earlier.
It’s not bad — it’s just incredibly disappointing. A thriller that forgets the “thrill.”
Final Verdict
The Guilty isn't the worst movie ever made, but it’s absolutely guilty of being boring, predictable, and nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is. Jake brought the heat; the script brought lukewarm leftovers.
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